stay close to anything that makes you glad to be alive

Hey There, Stranger

I found this article on the Odyssey online paper. THIS IS NOT MY WRITING, though I do think this is very well written. We’ve all had one or a couple and can probably relate to this. Its inevitable, it’s a part of life. And once you go off to college, it hits you hard. It happens because everyone from your graduating class goes their separate ways but some paths hit close to home. I found this and whoever wrote this is is a genius. Hope you find this a good read. Maybe this just shows if this is up your alley, someone is worth fighting for. Happy Friday!

“Dear Stranger,

I miss you. I miss texting you about every single stupid thing that happens in my life. I miss the way people would ask me where you were when you weren’t with me because it was a known fact that we were a packaged deal. I miss laughing with you and all of our inside jokes. I miss sending you heinous Snapchats and FaceTiming you from the bathroom. I miss looking over at you and knowing exactly what you are thinking. I miss your family and the way you used to fill me in on their daily happenings. I miss knowing that at the end of the day I had you, that when push came to shove, no matter how bad the situation might be, I knew you would be there. I miss my person, my other half and my best friend.I hate that when people ask me how you are doing, and I genuinely don’t know. I hate that our conversations that once used to be so natural and seemingly endless are now filled with awkward silences and formal “how-do-you-dos.” I hate that your face, the face I was so accustomed to seeing every single day, has become just another one in the crowd. I hate that we can now go days at a time without speaking to each other and that most of our conversations now start with “I feel like I haven’t talked to you in forever!”.I’m mad at us for letting our friendship become this far gone. What happened? How did we not see this coming? How did we not feel ourselves starting to drift? I am mad at us for not fighting harder for the friendship that we had. It wasn’t like most friendships. It was the kind of friendship that neither of us could have anticipated coming to an end. It was us against the world, and now it is nothing. I am mad at us for letting it become nothing but a collection of memories.I am sad because I don’t even know where to go from here. I don’t know what there is to be said. Nothing really happened to make it change, so how do we fix it? How do I make this horrible yearning for you go away? How do I shake the dreadful feeling of knowing that you are no longer just a phone call away? How do we find a way to fall back together just as easily as we fell apart?I am scared that it cannot be fixed and that maybe we weren’t supposed to be forever. I am scared that from here on out, you will not be a part of my life. I am scared that when I am hugging my friends this time next year at graduation, you will not be one of them. That when I throw my first housewarming party at my new apartment, wherever the real world takes me, you won’t be there. That when I look around at my wedding day at all the faces in the crowd, it will hurt just as badly then as it does now to find that yours will not be there. But what I’m most scared of is that you don’t even care at all. I am scared that maybe you haven’t noticed my absence in your life or that maybe you have, but it just doesn’t matter to you. I am scared that you have already replaced me. I am scared that you don’t look back on our friendship as fondly as I do. I’m scared that our lack of a future doesn’t hurt you just as badly as it hurts me. I’m scared that you don’t miss me as much as I miss you.

However, even if that is the case, I will never give up hope that we will find our way back to each other, no matter how unlikely that now seems. I will never stop caring about you and wishing you well in life. I will silently smile from a distant sideline as you go out into the world and kick some ass. You will always hold a special place in my heart even though I may no longer hold one in yours. I will never stop looking back on our friendship fondly and will always only have kind things to say.

I don’t know what the future holds for us, but I do know one thing is for certain, I will never find another friend like the friend I found in you. Thank you for everything. I miss you more than you could ever possibly know.All the best,